The price of relief
by SarahJane001
Summary: Anakin has been repressing the pain from his past for far too long, and now it has come to pass. He must deal with his past, even at the cost of his own sanity.


**Anakin's POV**

_In bed at two in the morning, but I'm not the slightest bit tired. I probably should get some sleep, but it seems like a waste. What I lack in sleep, I can make up for in coffee, we're not doing anything tomorrow anyway. _

Anakin lie awake in his quarters, staring at the ceiling and thinking. The two had just gotten back from a very rough battle; many clones were lost, and the Jedi were exhausted. He was slightly worried about his Padawan, who had seen many things a girl her age should not have to see. He chuckled slightly. His Padawan was stronger than he would have thought her to be, being able to carry on through battle after bloody battle and come out unscathed. It was probably due to the fact that the Jedi didn't have the patience for adaption; if you could fight, you were put on the front lines. Nobody had time for a squeamish Jedi. It had taken him only a few battles before he was able to cope with the horrors. He used to have horrific and excruciatingly vivid nightmares all the time, but those had stopped almost as quickly as they started.

Ahsoka, on the other hand, could not be said the same about. He saw how they affected her, and how she coped. He was actually quite proud of her. After a battle, he'd sometimes notice bags under her eyes and a haunted look about her. On a few occasions, he could sense her in the middle of the night; her panic and fear enclosing him until it just disappeared, usually the result of her waking up. If it got really bad, he'd wake her, but she didn't need it anymore.

He sometimes wished he had someone to wake him. He thought about war and death and destruction constantly, and any rational person could tell you that that wasn't healthy. He had had quite a lot of practice putting up his mental shields up, so that nobody else knew. He was a war general, and he certainly did not need to let everybody know just how much his job affected him. This was especially beneficial when his thoughts overwhelmed him, like tonight.

Anakin was not particularly fond of nights like these, because he had too much time to think. He liked being able to sort out his thoughts, sort of spring cleaning for his brain, but it is certainly a double-edged sword. On the other hand, when he had time to let his thoughts flow free to sort them out, the floodgates open and he can't stop himself from thinking about certain things, no matter how painful. He suddenly had a surge of painful and bitter thoughts, about how he hated his life and how the Jedi pushed him into it.

_You didn't have any choice. When they offered you freedom at nine years old, they knew exactly what you would pick. Same goes for every other Jedi, Padawan, and Youngling. They were all pretty much abducted just because they had a certain trait. They didn't care how badly it would screw you up. Although, it's not like life was peaches and cream before then, either. It's almost like life has had it out for me from the start. People can be so cruel, how they don't even care about you, and how hard their decisions are on you. _

He let his angry telepathic rant continue on until he realized that his cheeks were wet and his eyes were puffy. Anakin sat up, and wiped his tears away, but they had already proved his point.

_This. This is what they did to you, and you just let it go because someone tells you that thinking a certain way is wrong? _He had felt that way for a long time, bitter resentment towards the council constantly tainting his thoughts. _Who decided that they were so great? What makes them better than me? What makes_ anybody_ better than me? Nobody is, and they just act like it because I can't strike back! _On that note, a terribly delicious idea entered his thoughts.

Tonight, he would hurt everybody who had ever hurt him.

Checking to make sure Ahsoka was asleep, as well as Obi-wan, he grabbed his cloak and slipped soundlessly out of their quarters. Clipping his lightsaber to his belt, he made a mental checklist of everybody who had hurt him, and the reason they deserved what he was going to give them. A smile spread across his face as he decided on his first target... Watto. That toydarian scum had more than hurt him. He had beaten him, tortured him, and humiliated him. He had taken everything he had cared for and smashed it without a second thought. He had seen him do terrible things to his mother, all while not being able to stop it. This was just as much for him as it was for his mother. She would probably be horrified if she could see the things he planned to do to him, but at the moment it didn't bother him. As compensation for his failure to save her, he would grant her one last justice. He climbed into his fighter, and set course for Tatooine.

The legs of his speeder touched down to the gritty surface of the planet. He yanked his hood up, and hopped down to the sandy dunes of his former home. He was relatively close to his old town, somewhere in the area of the outskirts. He reminisced to when the queen's ship sat in a place very close to here. Back when all of the crimes he was here to avenge had been committed. As soon as he was in town, his feet walked the very familiar path to his old home. He stared at it with bitter hatred. Turning away, he followed his memories to the old scumbag's shop. As he approached, he broke down the door with ironic ease. How many times Watto would be drunk and beat him, and he would pound on the door desperate to escape, and now here he was, able to break it down with a single kick on his way back in, here to return the favor. It was exactly the same, though Anakin's painful memories were what was keeping him drunk, yet still thirsty for revenge.

Anakin glanced around the dark, dingy shop and snorted with disgust._ The sleazeball hadn't changed the old place one bit._ He made his way to the back of the shop, where Watto crouched behind a desk, armed with a puny blaster._ How pathetic. _He knocked the blaster out of his hand with a swipe of two fingers, and had the old bug pinned to the wall. He ignited his cobalt lightsaber, and let a sadistic grin wash over his face. He found himself laughing while he tortured and maimed the man. He kept touching his lightsaber to the course flesh of his former owner, his smile growing more and more as he shrieked and screamed and writhed beneath his grip. Eventually, the toydarian's pitiful wailing began to lessen, as he finally understood why this was happening. Eventually, Anakin grew bored and manually strangled the poor creature, feeling more and more weight be lifted off of his shoulders. The past must be reckoned with, and this was only the beginning.

The night stretched on, as the string of murders spread across the galaxy. He returned to the temple slightly before dawn, feeling a tremendous sense of relief and tranquility. He opened the door of his quarters, and hung up his blood-spattered cloak on the rack. He glanced at his lightsaber, which had many more deaths on it than before, and softly sighed. Those who hurt him had paid. He turned around again to find Obi-wan staring at him from the doorway. A look of disappointment was all across his face. Anakin stared back, refusing to feel even the slightest bit remorseful. Though Obi-wan was majorly disappointed in him, he knew that his former master would not turn him in. Even thought they were on opposite sides of the glass, they both understood that this was inevitable. This was something that had to be done.


End file.
